Surrogate
by snowmankittycat
Summary: Jason offers to spend the day with Sally when Annabeth is sick. Set after The Lost Hero but before Son of Neptune. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I don't own. Uncle Rick owns. :P

* * *

Jason hadn't planned on leaving camp that day, but he didn't mind. Going to see Percy's mother was way better than having to go on a quest, or battle a monster, or even listen to Leo babble about the Argo II's progress or Festus' dietary needs (gasoline and hot sauce, apparently).

Piper waved him goodbye, and Jason began trotting up the hill toward Argus, his chauffeur for the day. He could probably fly to the Jackson apartment easily enough, but the chance of mortals seeing him and having their minds short-circuited by the Mist debunked that idea.

On the ride out of the camp and into the city, Jason thought. Annabeth was supposed to be the one to see Sally Jackson, as she had grown accustomed to doing in Percy's absence. However, her sudden attack of influenza canceled her scheduled meeting. Instead, she sniffled and coughed and iris messaged Sally, telling her she couldn't go today. Jason impulsively offered to go instead. Annabeth peered at him queerly when he offered, but didn't ponder it for too long, as not a moment later, her face was in her cabin toilet.

In truth, Jason wanted to meet the mother of the infamous Percy Jackson. If Percy even lived up to the mildest of his legends, then his mother had to reflect some of that, especially if she knew and kept consistent contact with Annabeth.

As the buildings of New York flashed by the white camp van, Jason couldn't help remembering another city, one he knew well. Santa something... No, San... San Fransisco! That was it. Jason gripped the memory tightly. Hera had promised to restore his memories, but they had only been coming back in pieces and flashes, sometimes leaving just as quickly as they arrived. Jason had no doubt that by the time the Argo II was ready to set sail, he would have everything back, but that was still a ways off. So far, Jason had faces, events, and images down, but names still seemed to jumble around in his mind.

He gripped his head as another headache began to form. He had to take it slow, he reminded himself. He didn't want to deal with a migraine while talking to Sally Jackson.

The van came to a halt at the front of an apartment building, and Jason hopped out. He gave a nod of thanks to Argus, and the van reentered the Manhattan traffic. The many-eyed man would return that afternoon to pick Jason up, but until then, he had come semi-prepared to practice his therapy skills (or lack thereof).

He remembered the floor and room Annabeth had given him, and set off. Before long, he was knocking on the door to the apartment. Instead of Sally, a man with salt and pepper hair opened the door. He started, as if he had expected someone else to be at the door, before staring at Jason quizzically.

"Hello," he said in greeting. He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

Jason suddenly felt a bit self-conscious of the dagger protruding from his belt.

"Hello. Does Sally Jackson live here?"

The man's smile dimmed up bit, and his eyes quickly darted toward Jason's mid section, but he replied honestly enough, "Yes. Why?"

Apparently this man was Paul Blofis, Sally's husband. Jason hadn't known much about him, but the clues indicated this was the man. The man who apparently wasn't aware that Annabeth was getting a replacement.

Jason cleared his throat. "My name's Jason. I'm from camp. I'm here to, uh... To take Annabeth's place for the day."

This wasn't exactly how Jason wanted to introduce himself. He wanted for more along the lines of: _You know who I am? Great? Let's move on_. But that seemed far off at the moment.

Before Paul could question further, a woman entered Jason's line of sight.

"You can let him, in Paul. He's telling the truth."

The way Sally said it had to make Jason wonder. Had monsters come to their doorway pretending to sell Girl Scout cookies or something? He tried not to dwell on the implications of their suspicion as he entered the apartment.

He looked around, taking it all in. It was of decent size, and the furniture seemed okay. Nothing spectacular, but nothing scruffy either. It was the average city family setting.

Not that Jason would know much about that, being primarily raised by wolves and the other camp, but still.

Jason went forward to shake Paul's hand, and then Sally's. She denied it with a well-meaning smile, instead leading him to the kitchen. Blue rice krispie treats lay on the table, uneaten.

"You can have one, if you like. They're stale, but I'm sure they're still good."

Jason wasn't really hungry, but he had one anyway, just to be polite. It tasted fantastic, and he couldn't help but smile a bit.

Sally offered him a seat at the kitchen table, and she sat next to him. She stared at him silently, and Jason tried not to stare back. The snap, crackle, and pop of the rice krispie in his mouth became the only sound in the room. He cleared his throat and went to wipe his sticky fingers on a napkin. Sally continued to stare.

Jason took in a breath uncomfortably. "So, Mrs. Jackson..."

He trailed off, uncertain what to say. Maybe it would have been better if Piper had gone instead. She knew how to talk to people. But he had insisted. He silently cursed at himself. He should be doing better at this, but all he was doing was floundering.

Sally saved him from any more moments of awkward silence and self deprecation. She shook herself slightly, before speaking softly.

"Sorry. You're just the first person to actually enjoy eating blue food in this place for a long while," She murmured distantly.

Suddenly, the rice krispie in Jason's stomach sat like a rock. "Really?" was all he could offer.

"We eat it, but it only reminds us of Percy. It just doesn't taste the same without him."

Jason couldn't meet her eyes. He knew he was supposed to be the sea son's replacement in Hera's grand plan, and he was pretty sure Mrs. Jackson knew it too. He winced, but quickly schooled his expression. He really shouldn't have come here.

He cleared his throat again, and rubbed the back of his neck. Why was it that he could face Boreads and giants and Reyna and a very angry Annabeth but not be able to face a well-meaning mother? His fingers gripped the napkin tight in his left hand, and he could feel his face turning red. Where was his courage? Where was his control?

"You can call me Sally, by the way." Percy's mother smiled, and Jason recognized it. It was the same smile that he saw in Annabeth's pictures, only that smile adorned a teenage boy.

"Thank you for the rice krispie, Sally," Jason said. He smiled back, and some of the tension in his shoulders left. After another moment, Sally stood up from the kitchen table and grabbed her purse. She headed for the front door, and Jason quickly followed her. She reached for a jacket that was resting on a hook next to the door.

"Where are you going?" Jason inquired.

"We're going out. Didn't Annabeth tell you? We always go out, and since you're in her place today, you're helping me with shopping."

Jason didn't quite know how to respond to that, so instead, he silently zipped up his purple jacket and closed the apartment door behind him.

* * *

The pair first went to a small shopping center. It wasn't too far from the apartment, so the pair decided to walk. They entered a clothing store filled with female clothing of all kinds, including some items that Jason didn't know the name or use of. He thought he saw a pitiful section of male clothes in the back somewhere, but it only had a few multicolored ties and some belts.

Sally moved through the store with ease, more from familiarity than grace. Jason was coordinated enough not to knock anything down, but he almost got impaled by a clothes hangar one time.

Sally help up a blue blouse. "How does this look?" she asked.

Jason frankly didn't know, so he went for a neutral answer. "It looks fine."

Sally's head tilted. She didn't like that answer, but Jason wasn't prepared to give a better one. He wasn't Piper, and he sure as Hades wasn't Annabeth.

She replaced the blouse and picked up another one a few minutes later, this time pink.

"What about this one?"

Jason blinked to clear his glazed over eyes, then tried to form a comprehensible answer. "It looks nice."

"It's for Annabeth. I think it would look pretty on her."

Jason let out a breathy laugh. "If you can get her to wear pink, then maybe. But I don't think she would be caught dead wearing that."

The pair shared a nostalgic smile, but Sally took the t-shirt to the check out counter anyway. Jason briefly wondered how Sally knew Annabeth's size before coming to the assumption that they must have been doing this for a while.

Sally gave the bag to Jason to carry, more to give him something to do than anything, then gestured for him to follow her. The pair made their way out of the building. Jason didn't realize where Sally was taking him next until they were standing in front of a rack of teenage graphic tees in a neighboring store.

He opened his mouth in surprise. "Oh, I don't-"

She cut him off. "Let's get you something."

"Really, Sally, you don't have to."

She waved him off and began perusing through the shirts. She beckoned him over when she found one she liked. It wasn't anything special, just a simple blue t-shirt, but she held it up to Jason. It looked a bit small, and her lips quirked.

"I must be looking for Percy's size. Let me find you something bigger."

Jason swallowed but followed her anyway. They made their way through racks and racks of shirts. Sally would find one and Jason would give a noncommittal grunt, or Jason would find one (he finally relented to knowing he wouldn't be leaving without at least one shirt) and Sally would grimace at his lack of any style whatsoever.

Jason was ready to give up until he saw something that caught his eye. A purple, striped t-shirt lay on top of a basket of discarded dressing room clothes. He picked it up and held it in front of him. It was his size at least. Sally came around the corner of a rack with ten shirts in hand. She stopped when she saw his concentrated expression.

"Do you like that shirt?"

Jason looked up and began to stutter. "Um, well, I-"

Sally dropped the shirts onto the discarded clothes bin. "Come on!" she said, heading inside the nearby dressing room.

Jason followed behind quickly. "You want me to try it on?"

Sally gently pushed him toward the men's section. "Go."

Jason locked the dressing room door behind him and stared at the mirror. He'd always hated mirrors. People from both camps were always saying how handsome he was, and he guessed he knew where they were coming from, but they couldn't see the often confused and scared teenage boy behind the muscular, beautiful, and commanding praetor and son of Jupiter.

He quickly took his purple jacket off and then his orange camp t-shirt. He paused for a moment to stare at his scars. He knew where most of them came from, but there were still a few whose origins alluded him. He placed the new shirt on and quickly stepped out of the room to let Sally see. He walked forward and his adrenaline spiked when he couldn't immediately see her.

He would not lose her. That would be unthinkable.

He breathed out a sigh when he spotted her just outside the dressing room, looking through another rack absentmindedly. She looked up when he approached, and for a moment, she paused. Her eyes flitted over his form and then came back up to meet his.

"You look great, Jason."

Jason blushed.

"I've always liked purple," he admitted. Who wouldn't if it was the predominant color they had seen for the majority of their life?

"Well, let's go buy it then."Jason started to protest, but he saw her determination. This was where Percy must have gotten it. Sally Jackson may not have been facing down a Titan lord or monster, but she still had that unwavering persistence that Jason could grudgingly accept. He headed back to the dressing room. This time around, he took longer changing, gingerly pulling his new shirt off. He didn't look at the mirror once.

That changed when he heard the first scream.

In a flash, he had his orange camp t-shirt back on, and his other purple clothing was clutched to his chest. He rushed out of the area toward Sally, startling an already flustered clothing attendant.

Sally looked just as alarmed as he was, but kept a brave face. He supposed that constant monster attacks on her son would do that to a person.

He thrust his excess clothing into her arms. "Stay here," he ordered. "I'll take care of it."

He turned to run off toward the source of the disturbance but Sally's grip on his wrist kept him in place.

"Be careful," she murmured, concern lacing her words. She must have learned by now that protesting wouldn't stop a determined demigod from heading into battle.

He gave her a reassuring and dazzling smile. He's sure some of the Aphrodite girls would have swooned at the look, but Sally just gave him a firm nod and started running toward the opposite end of the store.

"I'll meet you back at the apartment!" He called after her.

She didn't look back, so Jason wasn't sure if she had heard him or not.

He bolted toward the front of the store, passing endless clothing racks and a few escalators. He launched himself over a perfume counter to quickly bypass one stretch of hallway that was blocked by a cart that had fallen over in the panic. All the while, customers streamed past him, going the opposite direction.

_See, Grace, those are smart people. And the lucky ones._

He dodged them as best as he could. A few yelled at him, calling him a fool and telling him to run the opposite direction, but he ignored them.

He quickly approached the front of store. A round checkout counter was in front of some automatic doors. Jason stopped a few meters ahead of them, panting hard. His eyes darted back and forth, assessing the location for any of the racks had been trampled or knocked over, and a jar of multicolored sand lay shattered on the floor. Clothes were strewn everywhere, turning the store into some kind of clothes wasteland. Oddly enough, he didn't see anything alive.

Warning bells went off in his head immediately. _Something_ had been down here, he knew that. But where was it now?

He reached down into his belt and pulled out the small dagger. He hadn't come with a sword (something he regretted now) as he hadn't expected anything to happen. He should have known better. At least Piper had drilled into him never to be unarmed. That was the only reason he had the pitiful excuse for a weapon in the first place. It wasn't much, and it definitely wasn't his preferred weapon, but it would have to do. He'd scold himself properly later.

Jason held the dagger out in front of him, his whole body tense and ready to engage. But nothing jumped out at him. After a few moments of silence, he heard something. It sounded like...breathing. Shaky, wet breathing. He slowly made his way toward the sound, coming from a rack of long homecoming style dresses to the left of the main check out counter.

With a quick movement that came from years and years of practice, he threw back the first dress, a lacy cream colored one, and thrust his dagger forward.

Instead of a sniveling, ugly monster, Jason locked eyes with a sniveling, terrified teenage girl in a shop uniform. She must have been working the counter when the monster appeared. She let out a sharp yelp when Jason lunged at her. The demigod pulled back quickly, and the mortal girl did as well, shrinking back into the dresses and thoroughly giving up on life.

Jason quickly hid the Celestial bronze dagger behind his back, sticking it into his pants. He wasn't sure what the mortal saw the dagger as, but the best way to calm her down was to appear less threatening.

"It's all right..." he soothed, holding his arms up non-menacingly. "Are you all right? What happened down here?"

He wanted to help the girl recover from her shock, but he also needed information. He needed to know where the monster was and what it was like, so he wouldn't be completely taken off guard when he first saw it.

The girl looked up at him with wide eyes. She stuttered, obviously suffering from shock. "B-Big d-dog. It came in and..." She gasped for breath, but started to regain control of her speech. "It scared everyone off. I called the police."

Great. Now Jason had to deal with police too. He wouldn't want to be caught here. He needed to kill the monster before it actually hurt someone, and he wouldn't be doing that if he was restrained by suspicious cops.

"Okay, where did it go?"

The girl pointed a shaky hand at the exit. Jason instructed her to run the opposite direction, and soon she was shakily making her way to the opposite end of the store.

Jason was about to exit when a voice stopped him.

"Hey!"

He turned to see Sally Jackson bounding down the center aisle, an umbrella in one hand and two shopping bags in the other.

She bounded up to him, panting. He was a good six inches taller than her, maybe more, but that didn't make her any less intimidated. She stared at him for a moment, then dug into her pocket. She pulled out a twenty dollar bill that she then slapped onto the check out counter.

"For the umbrella, and your shirt," she explained.

Normally Jason would have profusely denied having her pay for him, but at the moment, his thoughts were focused on her and her inability to just leave and let him handle it.

"I thought I told you to go back to the apartment." It came out harsher than he intended, but it was the truth. He didn't need her when he was fighting a monster. A worrisome mother would only be a liability.

He didn't need her.

"I came to give you this." She ignored his tone and instead offered him the umbrella. "You don't have a sword, and I doubt your dagger will do much damage to a Hellhound."

He gripped the umbrella. It was stiff and strong, made of metal that would be perfect for knocking things out and weakening a Hellhound enough to make it vulnerable to a Celestial bronze dagger.

"How do you know it's a Hellhound?"

She gave him another grin, but it didn't quite meet her eyes. "I've been around enough monsters with Percy to know. Now go." She patted his chest. "I'll be back at the apartment waiting for you. Don't disappear on me."

Jason was about to respond with some fake-cockiness or maybe a joke, just to lighten the mood, but then he looked, really looked at her. Sally was pleading for him to come back, not asking, and certainly not demanding.

And suddenly, Jason understood. Sally knew she had no control over her son, or even the other demigods. She couldn't tell them to not fight a monster, because they would just disobey her and fight anyway. They would be reckless when she told them to be careful. They would go off and try to save the world when their was little to no chance that they would ever come back, come home. Percy would gladly exchange his life for hers, no matter how much she tried otherwise.

Sally was constantly watching her son go off to fight in a world he had little control over. And Sally had little control over her son. There was never any guarantee that he would come back alive, and she knew that. And it probably broke her heart. But she couldn't change that. So, she sat and she trusted that her son would come home safe. She sat and she waited and she trusted a world that offered her no control.

And the world decided to spit in her face, because one night, her son didn't come home.

So, when Annabeth came over to visit, the pair would talk and would hope that one day, Sally would find her son. That one day, he could come home for good.

Jason understood this, and realized, today had been Sally's day. He was a substitute son. One who she could fawn over and buy clothes for and feed blue rice krispie treats. Jason wasn't the most affectionate son, but secretly, he enjoyed having a mother.

That was okay.

He didn't need her. He had learned quickly that he never needed and would never get a mother, but today was okay.

Sally gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and Jason left in a flash. The Hellhound was easy enough to incapacitate, and the pair were soon back in the apartment, eating more blue food and laughing at the news report of the ignorant mortal police trying to figure out the mall situation. Sally patched up one of Jason's newer scratches. Jason's control and his careful facade crumbled a bit, if only for those few moments.

Piper would ask why he was smiling so big when he came back to camp and why he had a couple of shopping bags. He brushed her off and promised to tell her later, after he had visited the Athena cabin with a gift.

A few weeks passed uneventfully until Annabeth received an Iris message in the middle of the night from a frantic Sally Jackson saying she had received a phone call from Percy.

(Annabeth did end up wearing the pink shirt, only she waited for Percy to be back first. She wore it the night Sally's boy finally came home, after Tartarus and after the camps' war and after Gaea had been defeated. Jason didn't go for the reunion. He didn't need to.)


End file.
